Any advice on weaning prems?

[glamourbadger]

My twins are 6 months (4 months corrected) and the pediatric dietitian at the hospital has advised we begin weaning. They are little ladies (around 11lbs) and have been completely disinterested in milk from day 1. They have always been a nightmare to feed and struggle to take more than 4-5oz at a time, they just never seem hungry!

Has anyone weaned a prem and can give me any advice? Have read all the popular weaning books and the advice from Bliss which say to take it slowly and offer their milk first. I'm concerned if I do this they won't be interested in the food as they will be full.

Would appreciate help from anyone who's been through this - many thanks!

I weaned mine just before 6 months. The advice back then was that we couldn't start before 5 1/2 months to account for prematurity, but it had to be before 6 months or they would never chew food. As a result they were weaned because 'the calendar said' - They were so not ready & it was a bit of a struggle for the first couple of weeks. The mainstream advice has obviously changed since then, so I would go by what it says on the Bliss website.

Unless there are medical reasons for you starting now I wouldn't feel pressured to. Current advice is 'from 6 months' - I think on the Bliss web-site it says 5-7months. The chewing action is the important thing to look for - they go into more detail on the web-site. I am sure you have read all that though.

If you are worried about them being full if you offer them milk first you could try either offering them solids between feeds - as a sort of 'play' excercise rather than as 'food'. Milk will be their food for some time to come. The other alternative, which I did was to let them have a couple of ounces of milk, stop the milk feed and see if they will have a couple of spoons of whatever. Finish the milk feed after.

If you are worried about their appetites now I would consider waiting a few weeks. You will only reduce their milk intake & if you are like mine you will struggle to get a pint a day into them. I was putting milk into all their food just to acheive this (made packets of baby food up with milk instead of water!!!).

Before you know it they will look like little baby birds with their mouths open waiting for the worm as you feed the other one.

Interestingly, we were advised to wean at 4 months (2months) - but have noticed that BLISS have now updated their advice to start weaning from 5 - 7 months, or 4 months in certain circumstances.

Milk is still the most important thing so what you don?t want to do at this stage is to fill up tiny stomachs with low-cal rice and purees. As Bliss recommends, I took it really slowly, starting with a teaspoon of milky rice in between feeds.

TBH weaning was a big stress-out for me because DD wasn?t interested in food for ages and was never sure if she was having too much, not enough etc. It took DD ages to really get into food, maybe at 12months? And only now at 15months would I say she?s eating a credible amount. When you have a tiny baby there?s the added pressure of making sure they are gaining weight. It?s quite hard keeping this stress to yourself because obviously you want to show that eating is a social, fun thing.

One thing which was quite useful - my HV encouraged me to bring dd in for weighing more often throughout weaning so we could see that I was getting the balance of milk/solids right and she wasn?t dropping off the chart, this helped put my mind at rest.

Good luck!

No advice as such but I'm in a similar situation. Dd is 20 weeks, 13 weeks corrected and I'm going to leave weaning until she is at least 26 weeks and probably a bit older. This is partly because I'm keen to do blw and I'm not sure that by 26 weeks her hand-eye-mouth coordination will be up to it and partly because I worry that her gut will still be a bit immature although I know that her gut is more mature than her corrected gestation iyswim.

Just to follow on from what others have said. I weaned my DS1 (6 weeks premature) at 4.5 months on advice from HV. He took to it really well and was soon eating a wide variety of food. Much better than my (full term) DS2 who I am trying to wean just now!

Many thanks for the advice. We have made a start and they seem to be taking to it well - after a few days of baby rice have moved onto pureed pear. Looks of utter confusion but still smiling!